Nian Tank
Tactical Analysis * New Year's Surprise: One of the many vehicles serving in the arsenal of the Atomic Kingdom, the Nian is a deadly battle tank to face in combat. Thanks to its regenerating planar shield, it can absorb blows that would otherwise destroy it, and its weaponry is not to be laughed at either. * Bright Green Lights: The weaponry in question consists of an all round, all purpose ray gun, which can turn enemy vehicles into molten puddles easily enough. Do note that the ray gun's rays tend to scatter after a certain distance like other ray guns, limiting the Nian's effective combat range and also leaving it unable to target aircraft. *'Off in a dash': By rerouting power from the planar shield to the wheels and the ray gun, the Nian can gain a significant speed and firepower boost, at the expense of exposing its thinly armoured chassis to retailation. * Seeing Red: The Nian Tank is horrifically vulnerable to enemy weaponry without its planar shield. Also, like other Chinese units, should it fail to receive a steady stream of power from one's base, it will cease functioning, shield, weapons and all, until such time that power is restored. Operational History The main battle tank of the Atomic Kingdom, the Nian Tank represents the core of the Kingdom's armoured power and is duplicated en masse to add bulk to mechanised manoeuvres. The iconic "reverse tricycle" shape and sets of multiple hoop wheels give the Nian great all-terrain ability and surprising acceleration, while the atomic core delivers impressive power both to the rear drive wheels and swept ray turret. Relying on all around planar shielding reinforced with a frontal wedge deflector that helps to prevent perpendicular hits to the shielding, the Nian can take an impressive amount of damage before shield failure. This enhances the tank's ability to close to attack distance, vital due to the short range of the primary ray cannon. Each blast of this stubby weapon imparts enough thermal energy into an armoured target to slag a Battlemaster tank and send it's turret dozens of feet into the air with the sudden energy release, and the rotating charge cell system allows for each shot to taken while the other two cells are recharging, cutting the recharge time of the main gun to a third of earlier models. However, all this power output generates staggering amounts of waste heat, which is stored in sinks on the rear of the vehicle and slowly radiated through a circulating coolant to underside radiator panels. Radiating waste heat through the triple-layered planar shields is a difficult act, which prevents full use of the reactor's power output. By shutting down these shields and opening the sinks to air convection, the Nian tank gains an impressive burst of speed and a constant beam of violent energy from main cannon, but of course must rely on it's paper-thin aluminum armour for protection. The Nian Tank packs a crew of three into an extremely tight compartment in the middle of the hull. The commander, weapons officer and driver are the cloned crew of a highly successful M6A1 Light Assault Vehicle from the National Revolutionary Army, and are known for their calm resolve and tactical sense during battles. The compartment of the Nian tank is fully sealed due to the high radiation of their weapons and shield generators and the tendency for the close-range tank battles it specializes in to create unbreathable masses of dust in the air. Controlling through a wide viewscreen, Nian Tanks have excellent visibility along the length of the gun but lack side or rear cameras, making it difficult for them to track infantry targets. Unfortunately this screen includes no aiming markers or rangefinder, so gunners must simply point the weapon and hope for the best, contributing to the Nian Tank's pitifully short range. Behind the Scenes * Unrelated to Nyan Cat. Just the Stats Nian Command Tank Tactical Analysis *'Leader of the pack:' Manned by clones and/or Eunuchs deemed worthy enough to command the Atomic Kingdom's tank divisions, the Nian Command Tank's eponymous purpose is to assist allied tanks in coordinated moving and firing. Thus, friendly vehicles near the Command Tank typically deal more damage and move faster. *'Hunting stance:' When they need to make getaways, the Command Tank can temporarily divert power from their planar shields to gain significant boosts to their communication and movement capabilities, at the expense of further survivability. *'Beware of loud noises:' The Command Tank's ray gun is apparently for "ceremonial" purposes, and can destroy tanks as much as a puff of air. Since there aren't significant differences between the appearances of a Command Tank and a normal Nian Tank, anti-tank weapons can easily dispatch them blindly. *'Chinese bulwark:'Fortunately, the Command tank possesses high-power wedge deflectors to compensate for its lack of offensive properties, essentially ensuring that its planar shields can take far more damage than the shields of other Chinese units. Operational History Transcript of a recorded conversation between several soldiers inside a confirmed remaining NRA Command Bunker, as recorded by an Allied spy: General Hu Shao-Ning: Commander An, you do know that those vehicles lost in that ill-fated expedition were the best vehicles we can obtain? How can you just let those be destroyed by those Royalist tanks? You're a commander of one of my armored divisions, you should know better than to engage those tanks in close range. Commander An Zhu: Let me explain for a second, Lord General. I was in charge of commanding the expedition to deliver some supplies to General Xia. Everything was going well for us until those Nuwa-damned Royalist tanks appeared. Just like that equally Nuwa-damned Battlemaster ambush in '67... General: I understand that that event has somewhat of an impact on your commanding aptitude, but that still does not justify you ordering our vehicles to randomly charge at them- Commander: We weren't randomly charging at them, General; I'd say it was the opposite. It wasn't until minutes later that I've realized something different with the Royalist tank groups we fought. General: What do you mean? What would precisely make those tanks you've encountered different from the ones we deal with every now and then? You know that most of them look and fight the same way, right? Commander: Ever noticed something about those Royalist vehicles? The fact how they just move and fire as if they're only one tank instead as several ones attacking at the same time? General: I think we've fairly established that a few months ago, Commander Zhu. Commander: Back then, you could observe some of their crews attempting to keep up with their comrades, going as far as to completely copy their mannerisms. But the division we faced? It's as if we fought with forces that were far from human. General: From what I've heard, even the Royalists refuse to treat their own soldiers as humans. What, perhaps, do you think makes them different from the Royalist tanks we've faced? Commander: If you've only been with us in that expedition, you would've saw that for yourself. That Royalist battalion acted as if they're of the same mind and body... as if they're being led by something else. Those tanks literally dealt major losses to our own Mastiffs and Whippets. In fact, I swear that one of those tanks didn't even have to fire as much as a single shot to destroy most of our tanks. General: What did you do next, then? Commander: The thing is.... I didn't actually do anything. It was actually a lucky from one of our own National Garrisons that took out one of their tanks. Maybe it had to do with, well, that tank's cannon did not even seem to function, but when it went down, so did the coordination of the tanks, you see? It's as if they didn't know what to do next afterwards, while we took advantage of it and took out some of their own tanks. Then they had to fall back, but we lost too many units to continue the expedition. General: I think you're on to something, An Zhu. A word of advice: when meeting those Royalist tanks again, try to destroy the one that doesn't seem to attack like the others. I think that they've find a way to incorporate that "Noble" strategy into their own tank battalions. Commander: As understood, General. Transcript ends Nian Wasp Tactical Analysis *'Tank Zapper': Meant for those situations when the Atomic Chinese encounter tanks too tough for their regular vehicles to handle, the Nian Wasp is a dedicated tank destroyer, armed with a powerful armour piercing ray gun. *'Overcharge': Like the regular Nian, the Nian Wasp is shielded, and is capable of temporarily diverting power away from this shield to its engines and weapons if the situation calls for it. *'Specialist':Fortunately for the Kingdom's enemies, the Nian Wasp is rarer than the standard Nian variant, being only deployed in Kingdom Armoured Divisions. Additionally, for all its effectiveness against vehicles, it fares poorly against infantry and structures, and cannot attack aircraft. *'Baseline': Additionally, the Nian cannot gain experience, like other Chinese units, and suffers from the same weaknesses as the basic Nian variant; a thinly armoured chassis, an inability to function without a steady stream power from a nearby Chinese base, and a short effective range. Background Category:Units Category:Tanks